A computer desktop can be represented as a fixed rectangular area that is rendered or displayed on a computer monitor. In the event a larger desktop area is desired, additional monitors can be connected to the computer, and the real-estate of all the monitors combined to create the larger desktop.
The desktop is generally used to render the location and size of objects for display, examples of which displayable objects include windows, icons, and electronic documents. At a particular point in time, each object can be represented on the desktop according to its object properties, e.g., its vertical position, horizontal position, width, height, and z-order (which denotes a layer for the object, and is used to render one object atop another, e.g., to overlap one window upon another window).
In a computer setup that utilizes two or more computer monitors, the fixed rectangular desktop area displayed by the monitors is itself bounded by the perimeter or boundary surrounding the monitors. However, a typical system uses an open-path configuration in that, when an object is moved or resized such that a portion or all of the object moves outside the boundary of the desktop, that portion of the object will not be rendered, and will not be visible to the user. This is the general area that embodiments of the invention are intended to address.